


Adjustment Period

by Lukas17



Series: The Royal Palace [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-21 23:57:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11955423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lukas17/pseuds/Lukas17
Summary: Prompto honestly didn't know where he fit in with all of this.





	Adjustment Period

The bandana was too thick and black to see the blood that had seeped into the fibers. He twisted it around the wound to try and stop the bleeding, but it soon began to drip as the blood saturated the fabric. Each drop hit the floor like a whip on leather, loud enough even that he didn’t notice the door opening.

“Prompto! What happened?”

“Nothing!” He whined, but his eyes followed Noctis’ as they spied the bloody letter opener that had fallen under the couch.

“Prompto, you’ve been here a week!” Noctis yelled. “Can we go a month? Please?”

“Jeez chill, it’s not like it’s a real knife.” He said. He reached out with his bloody hand to collect the letter opener and smeared more blood on the tiles.

“No, but your blood is everywhere.”

“I wouldn’t use everywhere.” He rubbed his boot over the droplets, smearing it all over the floorboards.

“You’re just making a mess.”

“Someone will clean it up!”

Noctis took two fingers and started rubbing at the side of his temple. “Why?”

The letter sat on the table, half open with a few drops of blood staining the yellow cardstock. But the contents remained unstained. Noctis tore the rest of it open with his fingers as Prompto found a cloth to wipe up the blood.

“Someone on the guard told me to check it in case it had something dangerous in it.” He explained. “Said it felt funny.”

“There’s a letter congratulating us on our marriage and two tickets for a weeks stay at some hotel.”

“Oh…” He focused a little harder than necessary on wiping up the few droplets of blood.

“You know you don’t have to let them push you around. Tell them to do it themselves next time.”

He nodded, saying nothing as he wiped down the letter opener and determinedly tried not to look at anything else in the room. Noctis had turned his back to thumb through the other letters set aside to be checked and the room was pulled into an uncomfortable silence.

“What’s up Prompto?”

“Nothing.” He said quickly.

Noctis’ hand slowly entered his vision. He silently took the opener and set down on the table. Prompto unfolded the cloth and focused entirely on trying to fold it so that the edges were absolutely perfect even if one side was a millimeter bigger than the other.

“Prompto come on.”

“I’m fine.”

“No you’re not fine. You haven’t been fine since you got here.”

Prompto bit his lip. “Yes I have.”

“You’ve barely spoken to me, you haven’t spoken to Luna at all.” Noctis’ hands gently circled his wrists. Prompto dropped the rag on the floor, but didn’t look up. “Come on, this isn’t going to work if you don’t talk to us. We’re a team.”

“I-I just…” He stared down at his chewed up fingernails and tried to say something. Noctis rearranged their handsso their fingers were laced together, not minding that his hand was still slowly leaking blood in the cut on his palm. “I don’t know alright?”

It was the move, the journey, leaving his life behind, watching Gladio and Iggy leave, relocating to a small closet for a room, working with the local guard, being spoken to as if he were a child, ordered around like a dumb lapdog, getting lost in the palace.

Seven days and he was already wondering if this was a mistake.

“Well, we’re around when you can talk about it.”

There was disappointment in Noctis’ voice. Their hands dropped and Noctis took the rest of the letters with him on his way out.

The blood was slowly drying into a gross blob on the still open wound. He found a first aid kit and wrapped his hand up into a little gauze ball before heading out for his next task.

The guard of Tenebrae were a well oiled machine, and Prompto was the weird, rusty wrench that had gotten wedged in the gears. There was no reason for him to be here. It was a request put in by Noctis, and one that he had originally agreed to, but sometimes it seemed like they just gave him a task to keep him out of the way.

His patrol route was through the outside perimeter and through the guards barracks. A relatively long route that he had to do for two hours before a different new guy took over. He wasn’t an experienced Crownsguard in the first place, so he could understand why he was being treated as a rookie.

But none of the other guardsmen liked him. He had came and was immediately given a private room near Noctis and Luna, a room that more experienced guards used to have to rotate in and out. The older guardsmen now moved through rooms around the edge of the building, while he had the sole task of being the last person between the two royals and an intruder. A job that was above his status.

He and Luna had grown close as they exchanged letters growing up, just like how she and Noctis had grown close, and he and Noctis had grown close. They talked about it in their letters often, and he looked forward to being with them. But then their wedding happened, and he was sitting with Gladio and Ignis watching them promise their lives to each other. He had no such promise of commitment, or love. Wasn’t next to them when the pictures were printed in magazines the next day.

A week into this and he’d only seen select parts of the castle. He’d refrained from wandering around since he’d arrived for no one reason in particular, though he knew he really should. His route allowed him to look at the building from every angle on the outside, and he’d seen the mess hall and his room, but that was as far as his knowledge went. There were always people around, and he hadn’t felt like being around people recently.

The gardeners were had at work planting roses and setting up Luna’s vegetables in a corner of one of the lots. A delivery was being made through one of the servant's entryways. No one spared him a glance as he walked up and checked the north gate. Just like the day before everything was fine. Nothing on the gate looked damaged, and nothing struck out as looking dangerous. They had given him a vague idea of what he should look for during his orientation, but failed to elaborate. So far he’d found nothing out of place, but he didn’t even know if he was doing it right.

He jiggled the east gate to see if anything was broken or loosened over the night, but the only thing wrong was that one of the screws holding the latch to the panel was broken. Two days ago he’d let maintenance know about it, but they were apparently blowing him off. He tugged on it to see if it was still secure enough to not worry about. The gate stayed shut.

“What are you looking for?”

Prompto clutched at the gate. The handle was suddenly more interesting than before, but he forced himself to let go and face her.

She stood several steps away from him, a respectable, non-intimate distance.

“Just, you know, checking to make sure it’s secure. Maintenance hasn’t come out to fix the latch yet.”

“Oh... that’s what they’ve got you doing?”

“Well, what else would they have me doing?”

“I honestly don’t know.” She said, “But, I’d like you to escort me. I want to walk around the meadow.”

Typical protocol would have been for him to walk slightly in front and to the left of her, going through doors and entryways first to protect against assailants, but Luna didn’t let him get ahead to do that and walked right next to him as they headed out through the south gate towards the meadow and the lake that was nearby. Both were technically part of the royal estate, but because it was beyond the gates Luna and Noctis weren’t supposed to go too far without several guards. She silently waved the guard at the south gate away and they were allowed out without being bothered by more people.

Luna didn’t immediately say anything when they’d cleared the estate, though she did walk with purpose. Her gait did not waiver, her eyes did not wander. And Prompto let her lead him to the other side of the lake, just several meters as far out as allowed.

“Prompto.” She started, plucking a rock from the shore and ungracefully chucking it into the lake. It fell through the surface with a plop and sunk to the bottom. “Are you happy here?”

Prompto stood stiffly a few meters away, just off to the side where she could catch a glimpse when she turned her head to the left.

“Why do you ask?”

“Because you seem unhappy.” She stated. “To be honest, Noctis and I are worried about you.”

Prompto dug the heel of his shoe into the dirt. “You don’t have anything to worry about.”

“Don’t say that Prompto.” She said. Another rock plopped into the lake. “We care about you. We wouldn’t have asked you to come if we didn’t.”

He didn’t know what to say. Luna continued to ungracefully chuck rocks in the water a few more times. She seemed to be trying to get the rocks to skip, but was choosing thick, round pebbles that sank to the bottom.

“I have a feeling I know what’s wrong.” She said. “You’re feeling left out.”

He stayed silent. She turned to look him in the eye.

“I know how it must look. We’re a very public couple, and everyone can see us. We’re the ones who are married, and you were in the crowd. Even if that weren’t so, making it public might be bad. But whatever we decide we can make it work.” She pulled something from her pocket. “It’s not much, and you don’t have to wear it if you don’t want to. But if it makes you feel any better…”

She slipped the little object in his hand. A small, simple ring with the crest of both her family and Noctis’ etched inside the band. Prompto almost couldn’t believe it, had to flip it over and over again to get in every small detail.

“You’ll always have a place here Prompto.”


End file.
